The Boy at the End of the World (6 page)

He raised his modest torch. Protein's enraged eyes gleamed orange. He was standing on something.

Fisher laid a gentle hand on the mammoth's shoulder. “Let me see what you've got there,” he said in a soothing murmur. “Come on, step off. There you go.”

Protein moved his foot away to reveal a smashed machine. There were wires and metal bits and a three-bladed propeller.

Fisher's brain and hands automatically calculated what he could make from the junk: fishhooks and arrowheads and small, fine cutting tools.

But he also knew what the machine really was: a gadget. One of the things the Stragglers had written about. One of the things that had destroyed his Ark.

More than ever, he felt himself called to the Southern Ark, to find the Stragglers, or their descendants, and the people they'd gone down the Whale Road for. Getting to his destination quickly seemed like his best defense now.

But not until he got Click back.

Fisher scooped up the debris and gathered his spear and knife and loaded them on the raft.

“Hop aboard, Protein. We're on a rescue mission.”

CHAPTER   11

The river churned. More eddies. More whirlpools. Along the shores grew tangle-brush and bamboo and trees hung with webs of moss. Fisher leaned against the mast and watched for a sign of Click.

He could be anywhere. Fisher wasn't even sure he was steering the raft in the right direction. Maybe the gadgets had taken the robot upriver instead of down. Fisher couldn't possibly search every inch of the entire Mississippi.

And maybe he shouldn't try, just keep going and resume his search for the Southern Ark.

Something large passed beneath the current, its wake rocking the raft. Protein snorted, ears flapping. Planting his feet, Fisher gripped the mast for support. He caught a glimmer of something just below the surface, at least twice as long as the raft. Not a whale. More serpent-shaped. An eel of some kind. He badly wished for that gas-propelled harpoon gun and let out a breath of relief when the half-seen creature dove for deeper waters.

Every moment he spent on the river exposed him to new dangers. That's what Click would have said.

Shapes loomed in the distance. At first Fisher thought they were strange islands, like massive slabs of rock rising from the widening river. But as the raft drew closer, he saw they were the tops of skyscrapers.

Vines and creepers draped from the rusty skeletons of the buildings. Sleek black birds, like ravens crossed with pigeons, perched on the spindly finger of an antenna. Wind whispered through the corpses of the buildings.

Protein rumbled nervously. A nervous mammoth was a restless mammoth, and a restless mammoth was a danger to the raft, so Fisher put a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Protein. It's just the breeze.”

Protein grunted, apparently unconvinced.

Fisher wasn't convinced either.

They rounded a bend in the river and came upon a massive sign of green-stained plastic mounted high on the riverbank, flat and tall and shaped like a colossal cuttlefish bone. Etched into it were letters. Words. A message. It was a towering sign, intended for anyone coming down the river.

Fisher's lips moved as he read in a hoarse whisper:

“The waters rise and the skies take vengeance. Summers burn hotter. Winters blow colder. And the storms hammer us in all seasons. Things are out of balance, and this is why we die.”

The Stragglers' message back in the salt cave mentioned the City of Ghosts. Maybe this was it. Which was good news, because it meant Fisher was on the right course to find the Southern Ark.

On the other hand, this meant he was in a ghost city, and
that
didn't sound good at all.

He continued reading: “Earth was not put here for humanity. It was not created for us. The Earth will go on and on. But it will do so without us.”

This didn't sound like the language of the Stragglers. The people who had written these words weren't huddling in caves when they wrote them. These were a people who lived in the ruins before they were ruins. These were a civilized people, and they knew they were dying.

A reflection winked from the top of a building. Protein shifted and growled, dipping the raft and sending little waves washing over Fisher's feet.

“Relax,” Fisher said. “It could be anything.”

He brought the raft up close to the building and tied it down to a protruding girder.

“Wait for me here,” he said to Protein, as if the mammoth had any choice but to stay put. Protein snuffled and dropped some dung.

The building was a jungle stuffed into steel gridwork. Fisher had a lot of tough climbing ahead of him, and for that he needed two free hands. That meant he'd have to leave his spear behind. Just him and his knife, then. With a piece of frayed rope, he strapped the knife to his leg before climbing onto a girder and slipping into the green shade.

Buzzing insects mingled with fungal aromas. Moss and spiderwebs hung in curtains. Fisher shouted Click's name. Nothing answered back but rustling in the deep vegetation. Probably just small animals. Walking down a girder, he pushed through vines, hoping his knife would be enough to handle whatever he encountered.

Something slithered near his feet. Fisher jumped back and nearly lost his balance on the narrow girder. When a tiny green lizard darted back into the green, Fisher almost felt bad for having scared it.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He knew what it felt like to be hunted by a bigger animal. He just hoped he was the biggest animal here.

Craning his neck, he looked for a way up. His legs still stung and ached, and he wasn't looking forward to a climb. One night, as they made camp, Click had told him about the elevators in the Ark, little rooms that brought you up or down to bigger rooms. If this building had an elevator, it had surely been swallowed by jungle centuries ago.

Well, there was no avoiding it. If he was going to find the source of the reflection he might as well get started. He found a vertical beam wound with enough vines to provide good hand- and footholds. He climbed.

By the time he'd made it half a floor up, pain gouged his shaky legs. Blinking sweat from his eyes, he kept on.

Up he went, until he reached the top floor and broke through the jungle ceiling. He immediately surrendered to pain and fatigue and sank onto a girder to catch his breath.

After a few minutes, Fisher got back to his feet and looked out across the ghost city. The river spread out like a lake, studded with ruins like stubby thumbs. Would he have to search every one of those thumbs for Click?

Six silver bumblebees the size of Fisher's fist emerged from under the ledge of the roof. Sunlight glinted off their mirror-bright surfaces. Their wings beat in a blur. Fisher ducked, ready for the attack, but the bees ignored him. They elevated over his head and dove into the dense growth in the middle of the roof.

Fisher stared into the green, where the bees had disappeared.

They weren't real bees.

They were machines.

Gadgets.

He picked his way across a girder toward the middle of the roof. Really, it wasn't so much a roof as just a big open space with trees and stuff hiding the gaps that plummeted straight down to the river. More of a death trap, really.

But gadgets had taken Click, so he followed them. He shimmied down a slender tree trunk, to the green shadows one floor down. Guided by the muffled buzzing of the mechanical bees, he threaded his way through hanging vines. Almost by accident, he found Click. The robot was strung up by black cables. His head lolled to the side. An abdominal panel was missing, exposing wires and circuits and actuators. Some of the wires were cut, and there were some electrical connectors that no longer connected to anything.

Fisher shook his shoulder. “Click,” he whispered. “Click, wake up.”

The robot lifted his head. His voice box emitted static. “Fisher. Run.”

A buzz loud enough to rattle Fisher's teeth came from behind. Fisher spun around and saw silver bees aiming for his face. On reflex, he swung out with his knife and made contact with a bee. The blade sliced through one of its foil wings and sent the crippled machine tumbling into the rest. They tangled and fell through the jungle, down into the lower floors of the building.

“The bees are merely unarmed scout-drones,” Click said. “They are not the threat. Your weapons will be of no use against the strikers.”

What was a striker? Fisher didn't plan on sticking around long enough to find out. He began hacking through the cables binding Click. The robot admonished him all the while: “Rescuing me is a bad plan, Fisher. To achieve your ultimate survival objective, you must abandon me and run.”

“Can you climb?” Fisher asked, ignoring him.

“I cannot. The disassemblers disconnected my left-knee servos.”

Scout-drones, strikers, disassemblers—how many different kinds of gadgets were there?

With a grunt, Fisher hoisted Click over his shoulder. “I need both arms to climb, so you'll have to hold on.”

“Very well,” said Click. “How is this?”

“Too … tight … can't … breathe.”

“Ah. Is this better?”

Fisher coughed. Maybe his instinct and reasoning had both been wrong, and he should have left the robot to his own fate.

He began climbing down a tree, inch by painstaking inch. “What are we up against?”

“It is actually quite interesting,” Click began, as if they were passing time in front of a campfire. “During my hours of captivity, I monitored my abductors' communication signals. They transmit in a familiar language. It is very similar to the one I used to communicate with other machines at the Life Ark.”

“You mean … the gadgets are from the Ark?”

“No, there were never any machines such as these in the Ark.”

“So, what does it all mean?”

“I do not know, Fisher. It is an intriguing mystery.”

Their route became too overgrown to pass. Instead, Fisher followed a beam toward the edge of the building, looking for another way down. Several floors below, the muddy river rippled like a brown sheet.

“What did the gadgets want with you, anyway?” Fisher asked.

“Spare parts,” said Click. “From what I could tell, the scout-drones scour the area for mechanical salvage and bring it to the disassemblers, who take useful parts away somewhere else.”

“And the strikers?”

A cluster of flying machines rose in front of them. They hovered in air, all sharp protrusions and grasping arms.

“Ah, yes,” said Click. “The strikers. They are here.”

The whine of the strikers' engines changed pitch, and they came forward, cautiously, as if trying to judge what Fisher would do.

Fisher was pretty sure what
they
would do. It wouldn't be nice.

“Drop me,” said Click.

“What?”

“I am a burden and I am jeopardizing your survival. Drop me.”

“I'm not going to drop you. You'll smash on a steel beam or get tangled in the plants or hit the water and sink.”

“Yes, but—”

“Oh, just shut up.”

Click hissed.

The strikers extended their claw arms. Tiny turrets swiveled around and aimed little gun barrels at Fisher. When red targeting lasers converged at a point on Fisher's chest, he knew there was only one thing to do.

He sucked in a deep breath and jumped.

Missiles whizzed past his ears as he and Click plummeted. He hit the water hard but managed to hold onto Click. Sinking fast under Click's added weight, he kicked until his tortured legs brought him to the surface. The raft was just a few yards away, rocking as the mammoth stomped and snorted.

Sputtering, Fisher managed to load Click aboard. But that gave the strikers time to target him again. Little missiles splintered the logs right in front of Fisher's face. He ducked under the water and paddled downward.

Missiles drew bubble trails through the murky water. The water slowed the strikers' projectiles, but they could still hurt Fisher. At least down here, he had a chance.

All he had to do was hold his breath.

Forever.

After considerably less time than forever, Fisher's bursting lungs drove him back to the surface.

Something came up with him. Something huge. Fisher's skin prickled with electricity as a serpentine monster surged up from the muddy deeps and broke into open air. Gobs of water flew off its shimmering skin.

Knowing his fish, Fisher instantly identified it as a type of knifefish—specifically, an electric eel, grown to a colossal twenty feet long. Its back skimmed the surface, drawing the attention of the strikers. They erupted with bursts of missile fire but only managed to graze the eel's back. The eel thrashed and retreated beneath the surface.

Gadgets with missiles or giant electric eel. Either seemed more than capable of killing him, and with only his scrap-metal knife, he didn't like his chances.

The eel stayed close to the surface, swimming back and forth like a giant letter “S.” Humans weren't the eel's usual prey, but eventually it would decide to vary its diet.

A thought arrived in Fisher's head. One way of catching fish was dropping a live electrical cable into a pond and electrifying all the fish. Turn off the current, gather the dead fish, quick and efficient.

“This will never work,” Fisher muttered, putting his head down and swimming toward the strikers. He'd be shot or electrocuted or eaten for sure.

With a flick of its body, the eel went in pursuit, breaking the surface. And that made it a target again. The strikers fired their missiles. Red blotches exploded in the eel's orange belly. It convulsed in fury, madly whipping its tail into a striker. Fisher's skin tingled with a billion pins and needles as the eel discharged bioelectric energy. The striker exploded in dozens of parts, which zinged like bullets into the other strikers. Gadget parts kerplunked into the river.

Fisher allowed himself a weak laugh of triumph. But his problems were far from over. Wounded, the eel churned and flopped about. Blood turned the muddy brown water to rust-colored froth. Its mighty tail came down on the raft, and Fisher watched in horror as the logs came apart and sent debris scattering over the river.

Had he just witnessed Click being destroyed and Protein killed? But as the great eel grew still and sank below the surface, Fisher spotted his companions.

Click lay facedown on Protein's back, which rose like a little furry island. The mammoth's trunk poked from the water like a snorkel.

Fisher used his last dregs of strength to paddle over to Protein. He grabbed two fistfuls of hair and hauled himself up onto the mammoth's back, beside Click.

“Mammoths can swim?” gasped Fisher.

“Apparently so. This is consistent with elephant behavior.”

Fisher's head dropped with exhaustion, the pungent reek of wet mammoth fur filling his nostrils. He wanted so badly to sleep, to surrender to exhaustion. But he kept his eyes open and watched the skies for more gadgets.

The machines had hunted Stragglers.